The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Poems, Plays, Letters & Biographies in One Edition. Robert Browning
and has made every possible provision for our comfort after her departure. We are quite alone. Friends are in the place, but we only get glimpses of them. The place is emptying fast, the pensions shut up, the walks on the mountain-side are wholly our own. Two days ago the snow fell thickly, and what a sight were the mountains next morning in a glowing sun! These changes I expect will diversify the whole month, and inside this warm, pleasant room Sarianna and I read, and don’t require “the devil to find some missing ill for idle hands to do.” You have much more to enjoy with all that good music thrown in, and I am glad for you. We get books and papers enough, and I am correcting proofs of the poem I was too negligent about in London. Many distractions stood in the way of that. After all, we have attained the main object of our journey, the complete re-establishment of Sarianna’s health, who walks twice a day, just as of old. I am cheered, too, by letters from Robert, the last of which comes just now.
He was anxious that his statue of “Dryope” should be seen at the Brussels exhibition, a triennial one, and important from the concurrence of the best foreign artists; but the “Grosvenor,” where it was shown, did not close till the first week in August, while the Brussels Gallery was closed to (entrance of) works on the 25th of July. Robert sent his photographs with a petition for a “delai,” only exceptionally granted; the committee conceded it unanimously, and have given it a place where it stands by itself, and is capitally seen. He went to see it, and so did the King and Queen, to whom he would have been presented, had he not been in morning dress. (The father of Robert to the mother of Edith.) You know very well how interested and delighted I shall be to read your German translations if you send them; do!
Again, from this invigorating mountain village Browning writes to his Venetian friend and hostess in Casa Alvisi:
Villa Berry, St. Moritz, Engadine, S.
Sept. 23, ’84.
For first thing, dearest friend, I am glad to know that my letter with the poems reached you before your departure. I had some fear that you might miss it. It is like your goodness to care so much about what amounts to so little. I did what I could to be of use by amending; I could have done more to the purpose if the poems were original; but I know your translations were faithful, as they should be. When you write out of your own dear head let me see, and try hard to improve it, never so little. I well remember the whole book of verses you let me read at Venice; I could not well have helped you there. And now for a sorrow after the gladness; we do not pass through Paris this time, but take the direct and more convenient route by Amiens and Calais. Last year we wanted, or needed, to see Pen, who was at his Paris studio; but now he is still in Dinard. I do not know when he means to leave; if he finds you at Paris it will be a delight for him to see you....
Well, yes, the king’s behavior has been admirable; what a chance the poor Pope has thrown away in not preceding him! If the “Prisoner of the Vatican” had quietly walked out of his confinement, with a Cross before him, and an attendant on each side, and passed on to Naples and the hospitals “braving all danger in imitation of his Master,” I verily believe there might have happened a revolution. Such events from much less causes being frequent enough. Where is the “wisdom of the serpent”?
Dearest friend, my sister writes, all love to Edith, all love to you, from your ever affectionate
Robert Browning.
On their return to London the letters to Mrs. Bronson again resume the story of this interesting life:
“... I have got rid of my last proof-sheets, and all of a sudden it occurs to me to ask—now that alteration is impossible, I suppose—whether I have offended in just dating the last poem from the place where I wrote it—the Giustiniani? The first poem was dated at the inn, and the last seemed to belong to the beloved place where it was penned, as I wanted to remember, or be remembered, rather. Have I done wrong? (I hear at this moment my sister actually singing in the next room,—so completely is she re-established in health.) By letters we find that the admirable weather at St. Moritz was continued up to the end of the last week; here the weather is fine, and finer than usual, but the sparkle is off the wine, the wonderful freshness of St. Moritz does not incline one to dance rather than walk.
“I am in absolute peace and quietude, and so thoroughly prepared to enjoy your coming,—if that may be....”
The next letter speaks of American friends:
19, Warwick Crescent, W.
Oct. 14, ’84.
Dearest Friend,—I waited a little before replying to your letter, wanting to be sure when I could say that Pen would be in Paris; he proposed to go there yesterday, and you will certainly have a visit from him as soon as he can manage to do what I know he desires very much.
Here are your verses which I try to be as severe about as possible, with no success, at all, worth speaking of! You will take my corrections (infinitesimal, this time) for what they are worth, and continue to send me what you write, will you not?
I was surprised two days ago by a note from Mr. Lowell, inviting me and my sister to meet the Storys at dinner to-morrow, they being his guests during a short stay in London; and yesterday afternoon they called on my sister, both the Storys and Mr. Lowell; the former are flourishing, and go in a few days to Rome. Where they have passed the summer, we were not told. Last evening at a dinner given by Sidney Colvin, I met Mr. James, who showed great interest in hearing how you were, and how much nearer you were likely to be. On the other hand, there will be a sad visitor to Venice presently, Professor Huxley, in a deplorable state of health, from over-work. I hate to speak of what is only too present with me,—your own health,—I trust you have got rid of that cough, (all dreadful things go with a cough in my memory.)...
... My book, which you kindly inquire about, is out of my hands and in print, but the publishing, the when and how, concerns the publisher. I do not expect to see the completed thing for another month.
Yes, I felt so lovingly to the Giustinian-Reconnati that I could not bear cutting the link allowed by the Place and Date that were appended to the Ms., and you permit, so all is well, if you remember me as ever affectionately yours,
Robert Browning.
Under date of October 23, 1884, Browning says in one letter:
“I saw Huxley’s brother-in-law, Sir Robert Collier, last evening, at Dr. Granville’s, and inquired about the stay in Venice. It will be a very short one as he has to return almost immediately for the marriage of his daughter Rachel; I can hardly think he will re-return, the ceremony at an end, yet he may; and in that case he shall be informed of your goodness to himward, in apostolically appropriate language. He is a thoroughly admirable person in all but his inconsiderateness in this waste of a precious life. I duly told the Storys how much you wanted to see them, and they probably have seen you by this time. Mrs. Story meant to rest at Paris, and forego the Amiens route. She has been unwell, but I thought her appearance very satisfactory. I dined with them last week at Mr. Lowell’s, and called there on Sunday. I met Henry James the other day, and surprised as well as inspirited him by the news that you were so near, and, as I believed, so soon to be nearer. Now write to me, tell me all you are about to do; how is dear Edith?...
O, no, Pen is none of mine to outward view, but wholly his mother’s—in some respects, at least. At the same age there was small difference between Pen’s face and that of the brother she lost,—to judge by a drawing I possess....”
To the Marchesa Peruzzi di’ Medici who sent to him a translation she had made of the “Ricordo Autobiografici” of Giovanni Duprè, Browning thus writes:[16]
“It is not so very ‘little’ an affair, and in the fear that when my sister has finished it, I may have to begin my own reading, and end it so late as to lead you to suppose that either book or letter has gone wrong, on this account I write at once to thank you most heartily. My sister says the Autobiography is fascinating; I can well believe it, for I never knew such a work to be without interest, and this of Duprè must abound in precisely the matters that interest me most.... When I have thoroughly gone through the book